I was just thinking. Has anyone done anything to the reel seat such as mounting it slightly off of straight on top when doing a spiral wrap. Seems like since the line guide on the reel is the first guide, the reel could be tilted slightly to one side. Wouldn't this help make a straighter a smoother transition for the line in a spiral wrap?

Also, I know this has been discussed before, but which direction should you spiral? I do not fish out of a boat with a deck, so I am not laying my rods down. I fish from a pontoon boat/kick boat, and all my rods are held in upright rod holders. I was thinking of spiraling to the left, because I am a right handed caster, and you normally turn the rod sideways to the left when casting a baitcaster. It seems that this would allow gravity to help the line transition to the bottom of the blank. Oh, its a crankbait rod, so I won't be flippin' or pitchin'.

Joel,
I have tried some experiments where I simply used tape to take the reel to a tennessee handle to check for line run. I found that it really made little difference. In other words, I don't belive that the effor required to twist the reel seat is going to give you any payback on line feed.

I do, however find that to get the best line feed, as well as reteive on both a slack and tight line, that I will generally offset the butt guide by 5-15 degrees in the direction of spiral - depending on guide and reel sizes.

I spiral the guides such that if you lay the rod down with the reel handle facing up - so that the rod is not resting on the reel handle, then the rod is not resting on any of the spiral guides either.

With respect to casting or retreiving effort or line path or effort, I don't think that it makes any difference at all, whether you spiral clockwise or counterclockwise.


Take care
Roger

in the spiral wrap you are doing so to make it more inherently stable when fighting a fish..most people hold a rod upright when fighting a fish..if you offset the reel then you will have an unbalanced rod when fighting a fish and it seems you will lose everything you gained in the first place..

What if we offset a spinning reel seat upward such that the distance between the spool and the rod is lesser (in other words glue the seat such that the blank is contacting the bottom of the seat). Wouldn't that decrease the angle between the reduction guides and the running guides? Could we also then use a smaller butt guide and/or running guides?

John, I thought that several years ago and actually built a handle offsetting the angle of the reel. My thinking was to change the angle and be able to use lower framed guides. I learned a great deal and I learned my thinking was off. I even mocked up a rod and tried it. It was very awkward casting due to having to keep the casting plane vertical. I also found i had to change my casting style to cast it effectively. It made a good fish fighting rod(similar to bent butt off shore rods). I found that it was just not practical and changing the angle of the seat didn;t have any appreciable difference yet added many other issues.
that is the reader's digest version and i hope it made sense

John,
Actually, if you look at the relationship of the reel foot to the face of the spool on many different spinning reels, you will find that the manufacturer has already designed a slight tilt into the reel.
Certainly not all reels have this tilt, but there are some on the market that do have the tilt for the very reason that you mention.

Roger